Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long one. I guess my last entry was in Grants so I'll pick upwhere I left off. I think I mentioned this, but Josh was having some major issues with his bike after two bolts broke off inside the frame. He went everywhere and no one could get them out. Most mechanics wouldn't even go near it. At one point we ended up at an Auto Zone looking for parts that could potentially hold his rack in place. I had devised a scheme to hold everything together using wire and wire fasteners that you'd usually use to hold a pipe in place. It was crazy but I had a feeling it might work and keep things together at least until the next town with a bike shop. Josh wasn't so confident and was in fact very down and out at this particular moment having realized earlier in the day that he left his camera memory cards in Pie Town 70 miles south. The combination of that and this seemingly impossible to remedy mechanical situation was hard to handle.

Having experienced moments like this on my last tour where "*** has hit the fan" so to say and then miraculously worked out, I was doing my best to keep it cool. Anyways, we were inside the Auto Zone with his bike and a bunch of tools and employees crowded around when a family of touring cyclists walked in. Their names were Vicky, Kevin, and Jay Mattson and they were headed northbound along the same route as us. We'd barely opened our mouths to explain the horrendous mechanic illness Josh's bike was suffering with when Vicky said "Oh come on back to our hotel room and let's work on it with my tools." It also turned out she even knew of somebody driving to Pie Town and back that very day that could transport Josh so he could grab his camera gear. The driver was a "trail angel" as their called or someone who takes it upon themselves to help hikers and bikers out in times of need. This trail angel was named Hugo and he was driving a thru-hiker back to Pie Town named "Let it Be." You might be a little confused right now as to why someone's name is "Let it Be" so let me explain. If you think we're crazy for biking the Great Divide, you should meet some of these hikers doing the CTD (Continental Divide Trail). They are basically walking the same terrain that we're biking but on a slightly different route. These folk spend so much time outside in the sun that they take it upon themselves to create a sort of "trail name" for themselves that usually has some hidden or personal meaning.

Anyways, while Josh was riding back to Pie Town to grab his stuff with Hugo and Let it Be, I spent about five hours hanging out with the Mattsons. Vicky helped me work on Josh's bike and we exchanged travel stories. Their son Jay was only 17 but he'd already hiked the entire PCT (the trail that goes along the Pacific Coast) and parts of the CDT with his mom and dad. What a cool family. They took care of me that day while we waited for Josh to get back. When he finally did, his bike was still falling apart and my incredible plan to hook everything together with wire had miserably failed. We slept in another hotel that night and ate way too much carrot cake.

The next day Josh devised a scheme to get all of his gear onto his bike without the rack. He went to Walmart and using a bunch of fasteners, bungees, a stuff sack, and a lot of ingenuity, fastened himself a frame bag to hold his stuff. Using that as a seatpost rack and strapping a lot of stuff to his handlebars, he was able to ditch the rack entirely. That construction project took up almost an entire day and we were sick of paying money for motels. Some friendly firemen let us camp outside of their station that night.

The following morning we hit the road for what seemed like the first time in an eternity. The ride that day was incredible. We coasted a nice gradual downhill with a wonderful tailwind all the way through the countryside. By the end, we were clocking in something like 98 miles (Josh didn't want to call it an official century but COME ON, we rode a century). We were searching for a church that we'd seen signs for when some friendly people pulled up in a car and asked us if we needed any help. As soon as they heard we were looking for a place to stay, they offered to let us camp on their property. We accepted the invitation. We hadn't even realized this till earlier on in the day, but we had been biking through a Navajo reservation for the past 30 miles. Our hosts Gil and Ancita were Native's as they called themselves and some really wonderful people. They cooked for us and shared lots of stories.

The sun roasted me out of my tent the following morning. I packed up all my stuff and hid in the shade while putting on gratuitous amounts of sunscreen. A 30 mile descent brought us into a town called Cuba where we ran into our friends Ray and Jerry and of course the Mattson's who joined us for lunch at a delicious Mexican restaurant. It was early in the day still and after visiting the post office and devouring some delicious goodies that Josh's mom had mailed out to us, we hit the road again. About 20 miles later we had climbed a couple thousand feet and I couldn't go any further. We camped that night in a beautiful grassy meadow at what I later realized was 8700 feet.

Before we left Cuba, we talked to lady who worked for the forest service about water sources along our route. She told us there would be plenty of water, so we rolled out of our campsite feeling confident that we'd make it the remaining 70 miles to Abiqui without a problem. As it turns out, she was quite wrong. The first 20 miles of the day were fun though. We were tearing up and down these little turns and gradually climbing. The scenery had changed from the desert down in Cuba to luscious forest; there were wild Iris's and Aspen's everywhere. Another twenty miles passed and now we were above 10,000 feet. I got an awful skull-splitting headache from the altitude and Josh's stomach started to hurt him. We hadn't passed a single water source and were beginning to run out. At one point, the trail got so steep and rocky I had to push my bike for a couple minutes. We stopped to eat lunch and I was feeling pretty lightheaded as I had the most delicious instant refried beans of my entire life. A few miles later, we were out of food and water and Josh decided he had to ride up ahead of me at a faster pace or he would run out of water. I told him the only two turns he would have to make to get to Abiqui and held onto our maps as he raced ahead.

When I got to the first turn it was a four way intersection of gravel roads with not even one sign. I made a left onto the unmarked road because my odometer told me to do so and hoped that Josh had done the same. A few miles down I was beginning to get scared because I hadn't seen one sign indicating that this was the right road. The gravel disintegrated into a path that was far more reminiscent of a creek bed than any sort of road meant for human travel. In fact calling it a "path" is even a stretch; it was really just a bunch of huge rocks and lots of sand. A few miles later I finally saw a sign telling me I was going the right way. I relaxed a little bit and tried to enjoy the 15 mile, 2000 foot descent through the creek bed. The "path" turned to gravel again in a few miles I was climbing once again. Finally the climb ended and I cruised the last 10 miles past cows and grassland straight down into Abiqui. When I got there I spotted Josh's bike outside the gas station/grocery store and thought "thank God, he made it." That evening we dined like kings and slept at the Georgia O'Keefe Inn after having no luck finding a campsite. I went to bed that night thinking "I am not doing ANYTHING tomorrow".

Your journey seems to be a lot like life. We have it all planned out then along comes roads that aren't as smooth as we expected, circumstances we couldn't or wouldn't have imagined, blessings just at the proper time......you guys are growing & learning more about yourselves than you can even understand now. Thank you for persevering, that is what those of us with CRPS do everyday.

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Gabe Smiley is the co-founder and cyclist for Ride for RSD. He is from Chapel Hill, NC and goes to school at UNCA.